Distant Impressions

The Senses in the Ancient Near East

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Although we often treat the senses as though they are immutable, fundamental properties of our physiology, the way we parse our sensory experiences is dictated by our cultural context. Accordingly, the essays in Distant Impressions explore the social aspects of sensation in the ancient Near East, inviting the reader to. . . (more)

Studying Gender in the Ancient Near East

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The contributors to this collection include both established and up-and-coming scholars whose work brings gender studies theories—from Butler’s theory of gender as a performance to more recent theories that consider gender as a spectrum—to bear on varied materials and contexts. Their essays increase the visibility of women in ancient history, untangle. . . (more)

Private and State in the Ancient Near East

Proceedings of the 58th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Leiden, 16–20 July 2012

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In the 5 days from July 16 through July 20, 2012, more than three hundred Assyriologists from all over the world gathered in Leiden, the Netherlands, to read more than 130 papers and to contribute to a variety of workshops. Many of the papers were read in the context of several thematic workshops, some of which were related to the main theme of the conference. This volume publishes 21 of the revised essays on the main topic of the Rencontre—Private and State in the Ancient Near East. As is. . . (more)

Fortune and Misfortune in the Ancient Near East

Proceedings of the 60th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Warsaw, 21–25 July 2014

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In the week between July 21 and 25, 2014, the University of Warsaw hosted more than three hundred Assyriologists from all over the world. In the course of five days, nearly 150 papers were read in three (and sometimes four) parallel sessions. Many of them were delivered within the framework of nine thematic workshops. The publication of most of these panels is underway, in separate volumes. The academic sessions were accompanied by many opportunities for. . . (more)

Baal, St. George, and Khidr

A Study of the Historical Geography of the Levant

Robert D. Miller II

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In Western tradition, St. George is known as the dragon slayer. In the Middle East, he is called Khidr (“Green One”), and in addition to being a dragon slayer, he is also somehow the prophet Elijah. In this book, Robert D. Miller II untangles these complicated connections and reveals how, especially in his Middle Eastern guise, St. George is a reincarnation of the Canaanite storm god Baal, another “Green One” who in Ugaritic texts slays dragons. Combining art history, theology, and archeology, this multidisciplinary study demystifies the identity of . . . (more)

An Introduction to Akkadian Literature

Contexts and Content

Alan Lenzi

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This book initiates the reader into the study of Akkadian literature from ancient Babylonia and Assyria. With this one relatively short volume, the novice reader will develop the literary competence necessary to read and interpret Akkadian texts in translation and will gain a broad familiarity with the major genres and compositions in the language.

The first part of the book presents introductory discussions of major critical issues, organized under four key rubrics: tablets, scribes, compositions, and. . . (more)

Fault, Responsibility, and Administrative Law in Late Babylonian Legal Texts

F. Rachel Magdalene, Cornelia Wunsch, and Bruce Wells

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This book presents a reassessment of the governmental systems of the Late Babylonian period—specifically those of the Neo-Babylonian and early Persian Empires—and provides evidence demonstrating that these are among the first to have developed an early form of administrative law.

The present study revolves around a particular expression that, in its most common form, reads ḫīṭu ša šarri išaddad and can be translated as “he will be guilty (of an offense) against the king.” The authors analyze. . . (more)

Tablets from the Irisaĝrig Archive

Marcel Sigrist and Tohru Ozaki

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While each of the previously known archives from the Third Dynasty of Ur has provided distinct views of Sumerian society, those from Iri-Saĝrig present an extraordinary range of new sources, depicting a cosmopolitan Sumerian/Akkadian city unlike any other from this period. In this publication, Marcel Sigrist and Tohru Ozaki present more than two thousand newly identified tablets, mostly from Iri-Saĝrig. This unique and extensive corpus elucidates the importance that Iri-Saĝrig represented politically, militarily, and culturally in Sumer.

Although these tablets were not able to be cleaned, baked, or. . . (more)

Cuneiform Texts from the Folios of W. G. Lambert, Part One

Edited by A. R. George and Junko Taniguchi

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W. G. Lambert’s line drawings of cuneiform tablets from the British Museum, together with his meticulous editions of their contents, form a contribution to Assyriology unrivaled in his generation. Upon his death in 2011, Lambert bequeathed his academic legacy to A. R. George, who discovered among its contents approximately 1,400 unpublished pencil drawings. He and Junko Taniguchi took over the task of converting the drawings into images suitable for publication.

The first of two planned volumes, this book features drawings of 329 cuneiform tablets found in Lambert’s academic papers. Written by Babylonian and Assyrian scribes between. . . (more)

Judging the Judges

Judging the Judges

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The book of Judges is full of characters of ambivalent moral integrity and acts of dubious propriety, such as Jael’s murder of Sisera and the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter. And yet the terse narrative and the reticent narrator frequently leave the ethical character of these actions in doubt. In order to avoid reading contemporary worldviews and ethics into this ancient text, Mary L. Conway applies a blend of narrative and functional linguistic theories to her analysis of the stories of the six major judges in an effort to more accurately identify the unifying ideological stance of the book.

Using an interdisciplinary approach that employs the concepts of narrative perspective alongside appraisal theory, Conway evaluates. . . (more)